FACTBOX: Key quotes from Russia's Dmitry Medvedev

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's trusted protege Dmitry Medvedev is overwhelming favorite to win the March 2 presidential election.

The following extracts from Medvedev's speeches and interviews offer clues as to what sort of president he will be:

PRESIDENTIAL RULE:

"Our country was and remains a presidential republic. It cannot be any other way ... There cannot be two, or three or five centers (of power) ... The president is in charge of Russia, and under the constitution there can only be one president."

RUSSIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD:

"If before we could ... build walls to insulate ourselves, in today's globalized world, when our states share, in effect, a common set of values, such cooperation should continue."

"It is necessary that the United States and Russian Federation cooperate ... It is inevitable."

"We are not asking anyone to love Russia, but we will not allow anyone to cause harm to Russia and we will get respect -- for the citizens of Russia and for our whole country, but not with force but by our own behavior and successes."

ON HIMSELF:

"I have a legal mindset which has pluses and minuses. The advantage is that it enables one to properly formulate aims and helps with decision taking. The disadvantage is that often I speak and explain myself more precisely than is needed. And from this there arises the feeling that before you stands a dry man buttoned up to the neck."

FREEDOM:

"I consider it most important to reach harmony between freedom and order in the long term. Empress Catherine II wrote: 'Freedom is the soul of everything, without it everything is dead. I want people to obey the laws, but not laws for slaves'."

"We're talking about freedom in all its forms -- personal freedom, economic freedom, and in the end, the freedom of self expression."

ECONOMY:

"We are not a rich country: we are a developing country, I would even say a swiftly developing economy, but we are not yet a rich country."

"No sort of state capitalism can be effective in the 21st century, we perfectly well understand that."

PRIVATE PROPERTY

"Respect for private property has to be one of the foundations of the government's policies."

GAZPROM:

"Gazprom has always honored its supply obligations. So the accusations of energy blackmail which periodically come from the West are absolutely and simply unfounded."

"As a corporate lawyer, I found it terribly interesting in Gazprom."

ROUBLE:

"Today the global economy is going through uneasy times. People are reviewing the roles of key reserve currencies. And we must take advantage of it ... The ruble will de facto become one of the regional reserve currencies."

STATE:

"The state must be rational and the right size -- the size that accords to the level of society's development. If it is a market economy -- the state should not command the economy but create the rational rules of economic regulations, control the adherence to human rights. Such a state is optimal. Do we have it? Of course not."

"We have centuries of bureaucratic traditions ... And we have not created the best example of bureaucracies, it is not the most effective bureaucracy, it is a corrupted bureaucracy."

LEGAL SYSTEM:

"One of the key elements of our work in the next four years will be ensuring the independence of our legal system from the executive and legislative branches of power."

"We need to root out the practice of unlawful decisions 'by request' or for money."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Peter Millership)